


Reassembled

by falsemurmur



Category: Private Practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsemurmur/pseuds/falsemurmur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>He tells her, “I have no right to pass judgment on you, but that’s not the Addison I fell in love with”. He will not say anything beyond that, because everything is said in that one line. And then all she wants to ask is “if I were still that Addison you speak of, would you still be in love?” but she hasn’t the courage to be daring.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Reassembled

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[pairing: addison/kevin](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/pairing:+addison/kevin), [tv: private practice](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/tv:+private+practice), [type: oneshot](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/type:+oneshot)  
  
---|---  
  
_**Reassembled**_  
**title: **Reassembled  
**fandom:** Private Practice_  
_**summary: **_He tells her, “I have no right to pass judgment on you, but that’s not the Addison I fell in love with”. He will not say anything beyond that, because everything is said in that one line. And then all she wants to ask is “if I were still that Addison you speak of, would you still be in love?” but she hasn’t the courage to be daring._  
**characters/pairings: **Addison Forbes Montgomery, Addison/Kevin  
**genre(s): **Angst/Romance  
**rating: **PG  
**note: **I want to dedicate this to [](http://addiekatefan.livejournal.com/profile)[**addiekatefan**](http://addiekatefan.livejournal.com/) . Because I can. And she inspired me to write [this ficlet](http://corsettes.livejournal.com/37519.html?thread=2200207#t2200207), which inspired me to write a longer Kevin/Addie fic based around Kevin and Addison reconnecting over that meeting (perhaps read that in conjunction with this?), and the final inspiring piece? Some lyrics from the song "Reunion" by Stars, prompted by [](http://addiekatefan.livejournal.com/profile)[**addiekatefan**](http://addiekatefan.livejournal.com/)  as well. So she's either to blame or to thank for this fic. Okay? General spoilers for the season (yes, that means Noah). Forgive the less than creative title. Enjoy. :)

~*~

_“It’s a nice place Addison. I hope you find someone who fits in.”_

_(Keep yourself together. Keep yourself together.)_

*

No one asks why she went up to the office in the first place. The focus is Archer. Her brother is “in town” as they say, and yes, that’s all her mind is on. It’s like Kevin never existed to begin with.

*

_The clock ticked. Nothing but her pounding heart could hear it, but it was there. Her heart heard a clock loudly ticking, her heart felt the world shaking, her eyes could see him steadily watching, waiting. Waiting for everything to fall apart._

_And the knot in her stomach, it was waiting too._

_She felt so fragile with him, but not fragile enough to just give up. The tiny strong part of her that somehow didn’t stay behind when her facets of reasoning and compassionately resolute strengths crumbled, told her to tell him the truth, but she didn’t so she paid tribute to this morally ethic part of herself by staying with him when she felt like running away because she had kissed another man and was lying. She couldn’t give up despite the knot._

*

She chanted, keep yourself together, keep yourself together.

Months later, a man named Noah is climbing into his car, rain-soaked, just having kissed a woman who wasn’t his wife. He kissed her, she kissed him…Addison kissed a married man.

She doesn’t make it past her living room without catching herself on the arm of her sofa, sinking down to the ground, ringlets of her hair falling across her eyes, tears falling down her face like the raindrops that had stained Noah’s sweatshirt.

She isn’t this. This woman isn’t a woman, she’s a girl lost up in a cloud of condensed rain so intent on transforming itself into a snowflake, when all along she was fine as a raindrop of beautiful catastrophes that knew right from wrong and stayed clear of morally gray areas because she had been there and done that, and it was a mistake. This was all a mistake all over again.

*

She’s sucked into an alternate universe where she can joke around, work, and fight with exes without tripping all over herself and breaking down into a fit of tears.

She could never do the same in California. She knows this when she encounters Kevin again, and woe is her because in the same scene, Noah enters stage left and not too many seconds later his pregnant wife enters stage right and she’s fighting herself to not look back as she hastily walks away, like a scared little puppy.

She’s all too aware of what she’s become as she’s holding her breath, waiting until she reaches the outside of the hospital to let out a breath.

And then Kevin’s in front of her, she begins crying, and he’s holding her.

*

She remembers his phone number.

She erased it from her phone and not once has called him since their breakup, but her memory’s never been terrible and he did exist, at least to her he did.

He doesn’t pick up, but she leaves him a message, apologizing for the mild breakdown of hers that included crying and some mumbling about having feelings for Noah, a married man. Then she thanks him for being patient and listening, and then she hangs up, stares at her phone, and closes her eyes, hoping against hope he’ll return her call.

*

Seven hours later, she receives a call from him, and they speak ever so briefly, but the two minute conversation nestles itself in her head and she sleeps better than she has in awhile.

*

Seven days later, he’s at her doorstep, and he tells her, “I want to hear what you’ve got to say.” Beyond that, he doesn’t elaborate. He just wants to listen to her, so she tells him that she has feelings for this married man, and what’s worse is that not too many nights ago, she acted on those feelings by kissing said married man.

When she’s done and the moon has come out, he tells her, “I have no right to pass judgment on you, but that’s not the Addison I fell in love with”. He will not say anything beyond that, because everything is said in that one line. And then all she wants to ask is “if I were still that Addison you speak of, would you still be in love?” but she hasn’t the courage to be daring.

*

On a Saturday evening, she’s standing on Kevin’s doorstep, reciting the words in her head, when finally he opens his door.

“Are you still in love with the other Addison?”

It sounds so ridiculous, but neither of them strikes so much as a smile.

She watches his face contort for a second, then his mouth part for a few. Then he crosses his arms over his chest, and says, “what happened?”

She laughs and looks away, then up at the sky. “He had his kid today. There were complications with the birth, and their baby has a bit of a fight ahead, but I know it’ll survive. But Noah said thank you six times over when we were alone, after his baby was born, and he went in to hug me, and when I wouldn’t allow him to get two inches from he, he said…he said he still wanted me, and I felt so sick to my stomach…”

She licks her lips and laughs again. She catches Kevin’s gaze. “I’m sorry. For everything. I’m sorry for kissing another man, I’m sorry for being the woman who thought maybe an affair was justified if there were feelings involved even if the cheater’s real partner was a perfectly wonderful person, and I’m sorry that I never said sorry for kissing another man.”

Kevin gives her a small smile and nods. “Thank you. And me too, I’m sorry for everything I did--and for not saying sorry.”

They chuckle softly, and there’s an awkward pause before she excuses herself, he says goodbye and sincerely wishes her well, and she goes to her car feeling like the world is not tearing at its seams.

*

Closure liked to be elusive with her, but she was so sure she attained it with Kevin that Saturday afternoon. As if the story had finally ended there and that was perfectly fine. Nothing left to say, nothing left to save or break, nothing left to hate.

Yet, she’s never missed him so much. Not in the days between their first meeting and their first date, not between their first date and their second, not between their first big fight and their supposed make up, not between their break-up and first post-breakup run-in.

She misses him, and it’s not about her being lonely or just wanting to feel something--it’s about him and how she misses his warm smiles.

*

He’s the one to come to her, saying as he crosses into her living room, “I’m not in love with the other Addison because you can’t love something that doesn’t exist.”

Her heart stops beating for a second, but she steadies herself mentally and puts herself back on track. Not able to say a word as she makes sure she keeps calm, he says at his own pause, “I’m in love with a woman who makes mistakes, and unlike most other people in this world, not only learns from them and doesn’t repeat them, but also evolves from them. I’m in love with a woman who’s not afraid to find herself when she’s lost her compass and rights things after stumbling.”

He stares directly at her and her heart beats irregularly, but she doesn’t attempt to pacify her racing heart.

“All I know is that you’re beautiful Addison, and for you to have kissed that married man jaded me. My comment about the other Addison was rude, but I hated hurting you--because I know that must have hurt. But you needed to hear me say it. So you could fight back to being the Addison you have always been.”

She’s frozen in her spot, so he walks over to her, looks down softly, until she wraps her arms around him, and he holds her in return. “Thank you,” she says in a breath as tears line her eyes, “thank you.”

He kisses her hair, and this, this is more than enough.

*

There’s a part of her at one point that just ruminates over the shift she’s taken and the mess between being the woman who took a misstep but remembered what didn’t define her as a person and being the girl who was torn over a man and cried.

Whatever adjustment she took upon herself to be none and all of the above so long as she was just herself, and whatever adjustment Kevin took upon himself to be more comfortable with her - whatever those adjustments, they worked towards the aim of learning to trust, and that component constantly shifts as they slow down and speed up in their new relationship.

There are times, small bits of time in some indefinite amount of hours between their weeks of being _them_ again where they both or individually forget that they haven’t been in a relationship together for months, like the time has collapsed and they never broke up, and it’s fine for those small bits in time. Then both or either realize that a reference has been made to their old relationship, and for some seconds it’s awkward, but it passes and some time later they manage to laugh at the tiny mistake.

They have time to learn.


End file.
